Hex and the City

by Simon R. Green

  “We’re looking for information,” I said. “The answers to some questions.”

  Herne shook all over, like a dog. “Don’t know anything, any more. World has moved on, oh yes. The forests are gone. All cities now. Steel and stone and brick, and the magic in them does not know me. Hate cities. Hate the Nightside. Hate being old. Live long enough, and you get to see everything you ever cared for rot and fail and fall.” He looked at me sharply. “I know you, John Taylor. Know you well enough not to worship at your feet. What you want? What questions?”

  “Tell me about the old days,” I said. “When England was young, and so were you.”

  He grinned widely, showing great gaps in his teeth. “Still remember my glory days, leading the Wild Hunt on my moon stallion. All men and women were my prey on that night. Long, long ago…Once I preyed on humans, now I live off their leavings. Anyone could end up like me, oh yes. One bad day…and then you fall off the edge and can’t get back. Men become farmers, not hunters. Towns grow into cities. The forests grew smaller, and so did I. Men grew more powerful, and I grew less. Cities…the Nightside was one of the first, the beginnings of the rot.”

  “Not the first?” said Sinner.

  Herne grinned again. “Opinion is divided. Before my time. Ask the Old Ones. It was there in the earliest of days, and it is still here. More savage and merciless than I ever was.”

  “I have heard it said,” I said carefully, “that my mother is tied in with the creation of the Nightside. What do you know of that?”

  Herne shrugged easily. “Don’t know for sure. Don’t think anyone does. I have an opinion. Opinions are like arseholes; everyone’s got one. You ask me, I think your mother was Queen Mab, first Queen of the Faerie; before Titania. Pretty pretty Titania. I remember Mab. Beautiful as the dawn, more powerful than the seasons. She walked in lightning, danced on the moonbeams, entranced you with a look, and forgot you with a shrug. Queen Mab, the magnificent and feared. The Faerie don’t talk much about Mab any more, but still they fear her, should she ever return. She’s been written out of most of the stories and the secret histories, in favour of sweet little Titania; but some of us have never forgotten Queen Mab.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  He chuckled briefly. A low, nasty sound. “Ask Tam O’Shanter, dancing on his own grave. Brandishing the broken bones of a rival, and gnawing on the heart he tore from the rival’s breast. We took our love affairs seriously in those days. Our passions were larger, our tragedies more terrible. Death had little dominion over such as us. Our stories had the power of fate, and destiny.” Herne cocked his ugly head on one side, as though listening to voices or perhaps songs only he could hear. “I remember the Faerie leaving the worlds of men, once it was clear to them that cities and civilisation and cold steel would inevitably triumph. They walked sideways from the sun, all of them, retreating to their own secret, hidden world. Yes. I should have gone with them when I had the chance. They did offer. They did! Herne always had more in common with the Fae than with earth-grubbing Humanity. But they were in it for the long term, and we never were. Should have gone with them, yes; but no, stayed to fight and lose and see the world become something I no longer recognise, or have a place in.

  “So, here is Herne the Hunter. Among the fallen and the hopeless. Doing penance.”

  “What for?” said Pretty Poison.

  He crawled back into his cardboard box, holding my gaze all the while. “Ask the Lord of Thorns. Now go away. All of you. Or I’ll kill you.”

  We left him crying in his cardboard box.

  I looked around for Madman. It was time we were moving on. “Where to next?” I said. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “How about the Lord of Thorns?” suggested Sinner.

  I winced, and so, I noticed, did Pretty Poison. I looked severely at Sinner. “Only when we’ve tried absolutely everyone else in the Nightside, and I mean everybody. That guy even scares Walker, and with good reason. Why bring him up?”

  “Because Herne mentioned him.”

  “So he did. Next?”

  “All right,” said Sinner. “How about the Lamentation?”

  I actually shuddered that time. “Why on earth would we want to go and see that crazy piece of shit?”

  “Because Herne said we needed to talk to the Old Ones,” Sinner said calmly. “And the Lamentation is the oldest Being I know of.”

  “There is that,” I said, reluctantly. “There’s no doubt it knows all kinds of things; if you can persuade it to talk. But you don’t get to be an old Power in the Nightside by being friendly and approachable. No-one’s even sure what the Lamentation is any more; except it’s supersaturated with death magic and crazy with it. I don’t even like saying the name aloud, in case it’s listening. It could be a demon or a Transient Being or even a human who took a really wrong turn. No-one knows. They say it eats souls…”

  “But it’s definitely older than Herne,” Sinner said stubbornly. “If anyone knows how far back the Nightside goes, I’d put good money on the Lamentation.”

  “So you think we should just barge in and ask it questions?” I said.

  “You can hide behind me if you like,” said Sinner. “It’s up to you, John. How badly do you want to get to the bottom of this case? Bad enough to beard a Power and a Domination in its lair?”

  “Oh hell,” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Boys…” said Pretty Poison. “I think we have a problem with Madman.”

  I looked round quickly. And there was Madman, dancing and pirouetting through the boxes and tents of Rats’ Alley while flowers blossomed brightly in his wake, springing right out of the cobbled ground and through cracks in the grimy brickwork. He ended his dance with a flourish, and a spring bubbled up at his feet. One of the homeless dipped his metal cup in the stream, tried it, and cried out excitedly that it was pure whiskey. The homeless looked on Madman with new eyes.

  They surged forward to crowd around him, demanding he conjure up for them food and drink, heat and light and palaces to live in. They pawed and clawed at him, their voices growing loud and insistent and threatening. Madman tried to back away, but there was nowhere for him to go. I tried to get to him, but there were too many people in the way. I yelled at the street people, using the authority of my name, but they were beyond listening. And then my skin prickled and my heart missed a beat, and I stopped trying to press forward. Something bad was coming. I could feel it.

  The brickwork nearest to Madman began to bubble and melt and run away. The ground shook, as though something was heaving up beneath it, trying to break through. The light in Rats’ Alley kept changing colour, and there were too many shadows in the square with nothing to cast them. All around there was a growing feeling of…uncertainty. That nothing could be relied on any more. That the curtains of the world might part at any moment to reveal what was really going on behind the scenes. Madman was losing his self-control.

  The street people fell back from him, crying out in shock and alarm and growing horror. The world was coming undone all around Madman. I grabbed Sinner by the arm. I couldn’t get my breath, and it seemed to me that at any moment I might fall upwards, sailing off into the night sky forever. Everywhere I looked, the details on everything were changing, in utterly arbitrary ways. One of the homeless grabbed at Madman, to make him stop the changes, only to shriek in terror as Madman looked at him, and changed him, till he looked like a modern art painting, all angles and dimensions and clashing perspectives. Parts of him were missing. Horribly, he was still alive. Madman looked upon his work, and his face showed nothing, nothing at all.

  Sister Morphine pulled the changed man away from Madman and cradled him in her comforting arms. She glared at me. “This is all your fault! You brought him here! Do something!”

  I grabbed a few useful items from my coat, braced myself, and was about to start forward again when Sinner pushed past me. He strode forward and locked eyes with Madman. The two men stood silentl
y together, lost in each other’s eyes, while the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Madman let out his breath in a long, slow sigh, and looked away, and the world grew calm and steady around him again. Sinner’s singular nature had given Madman an anchor, and stabilised him. Rats’ Alley was still and sane again. Many of the homeless were weeping and shaking. Sinner took Madman by the arm and led him out of the square, and Madman went with him as docile as a child.

  “Can’t take you anywhere,” I said.

  SEVEN

  Why Don’t the Dead Lie Still?

  We left the darkness of Rats’ Alley behind us and made our way back out into the bright city lights of Uptown. The night was too dark, the neon too bright, but it still felt like home. In many ways, leaving Rats’ Alley was like being born again. Like declaring you’re ready to take on the world again, and the world had better look out. I’d felt the same the last time I did so, all those years ago. Because no-one ever really lives in Rats’ Alley; they’re all just existing. I took a deep breath and looked around me. The usual crowds came and went, pounding the pavements, intent on their own very private business, and Walker’s watchers were still observing from what they hoped was a safe distance. (Walker didn’t pay them enough to go into Rats’ Alley after us.) It seemed to me that there were rather more of them than there had been the last time I looked, and I stopped where I was, to check out the situation. My companions waited patiently as I glared openly about me. Some of the watchers stepped back into doorways and the shadows of alley mouths, but the newcomers just stared calmly back. Like vultures scenting dead bodies in the near future. I pointed these people out to Sinner and Pretty Poison. (Madman was already off with the faeries again.)

  “We’ve picked up some new friends,” I said. “Not your ordinary, everyday watchers. See those seven Oriental gentlemen, with the idiograms tattooed above their left eyebrows? Combat magicians. Hooded Claw Clan. Just goes to show; everyone answers to Walker.”

  “Dangerous people?” said Sinner.

  “Very,” I said.

  “That’s all right,” said Pretty Poison. “We’re dangerous people, too.”

  “Still,” said Sinner. “Combat magicians? Walker is taking this case seriously, isn’t he…What about those two gentlemen there, with the wolf pelts and claw necklaces?”

  “Supernatural trackers. Lupus extremis. They could follow our scent through a skunk factory. And teleporting wouldn’t throw them off either; they’d just jump right after us, piggy-backing our magics.”

  “Is there any way to shake them off?” said Sinner.

  I grinned. “Sure. Go places they won’t dare follow us.”

  “I don’t like the look of those three,” Pretty Poison said mildly. “They have the stink of sanctity about them.”

  I looked where she was pointing, then cursed under my breath. “Now they are serious trouble. The Holy Trio. A man, a woman, and a recently departed spirit; all of them Jesuit demonologists and fully paid-up members of the Fun Is Evil Club. The flip side of tantric magic; they used the tensions caused by a lifetime of celibacy to power their spells. Result—energy to burn, and a really spiteful attitude to the world in general and the Nightside in particular. The Authorities don’t normally let them in. Damn! Walker must be really serious about this. We can forget about any more hell-fire teleports; the Trio could stamp the flames out just by glaring at us.”

  “I could kill them,” said Pretty Poison.

  “No you couldn’t,” said Sinner. “Not if you want to stay with me.”

  “Well of course, Sidney darling. But you’re going to have to explain this whole restraint concept to me again later.”

  Sinner looked at me suddenly, his usual mild gaze thoughtful and appraising. “I thought you were supposed to be the Vatican’s blue-eyed boy, after you got the Unholy Grail back for them?”

  “That was a special assignment for the Pope,” I said.

  “Not the Vatican. And Walker has always been able to call on the Church, as well as the State and the Army, to back him up. But I haven’t seen a gathering like this for years…and never just for me.”

  “So what do we do?” said Madman, catching us all by surprise. It was easy to forget he was listening. It was easy to forget he was still there.

  “I think…we’ll just let them follow us,” I said. “It’s not a long walk from here to the lair of the Lamentation. An awful lot of them will drop out, once they realise where we’re going. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t go there myself if I didn’t have to. In fact, I do have to, and I’m still trying to think of a way out of it.”

  “The trouble with shadows,” said Madman, “is they watch you all the time, but you can’t see their eyes.”

  We all considered that for a while. “Congratulations,” said Sinner. “That actually bordered on pertinent, not to mention lucid.”

  “No-one listens when I tell them things,” Madman said sadly.

  Sinner turned back to me in a determined sort of way. “I just had a thought,” he said firmly. “Sandra Chance is supposed to have a relationship with the Lamentation these days; even if no-one is sure what it might be. Could we perhaps contact her and ask her for an introduction? Maybe even get her to act as an intermediary?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “First, it’s just gossip. And second, she’s not too keen on me at the moment. Not since I let the butterfly get away.”

  Sinner waited until he realised I wasn’t going to say any more, then sighed. “You have a history with practically everyone, don’t you?”

  “Not all of it bad,” I said defensively. “There must be someone in the Nightside who hasn’t wanted to kill me at some time or other.”

  “I wouldn’t put money on it,” said Pretty Poison.

  We walked out of Uptown, trailing our pack of observers behind us, and made our way through a series of increasingly seedy areas, where even the neon seemed grimy. The buildings huddled together, though the strangers on the streets kept resolutely to themselves. The windows were all shuttered or covered with metal grilles, and the doors were locked to everyone except those who knew the right things to say or ask for. We were in Freak Fair now, where all the fetishists, obsessives, and the more extreme enthusiasts came in search of things that most people wouldn’t even recognise as pleasure. Not a place for tourists. The Freak Fair makes even the everyday residents of the Nightside feel dirty. I’d been here once before, on a case, and afterwards I had to burn my shoes.

  The people we passed kept their eyes determinedly downcast and made a point of giving each other plenty of room. It was all very quiet and polite, though the stamp of perversion and morbidity hung heavily on the air. The people tracking us began to fall back in ones and twos, then in something of a rush, once it was clear where we were going, clearly deciding that there were very definite limits to their duty. Everyone draws the line somewhere, even in the Nightside. But the hardier souls stuck with us, shouldering people out of their way to maintain their line of sight. I could feel my shoulders hunching as we continued through the narrow streets, as though anticipating an attack. Freak Fair is not a comfortable place to be. Pretty Poison, on the other hand, actually blossomed, striding happily along with a smile for everyone. Sinner didn’t seem to be affected at all, but then, he was in love with a demon succubus. Madman hummed cheerfully along with his sound track, which was currently Madonna’s Erotica. Takes all sorts…

  We finally arrived at the deconsecrated funeral parlour that currently housed that old and awful Being called the Lamentation. It changed its location regularly, partly because there were a hell of a lot of people (and others) who wanted it dead and gone, and also because its presence alone was enough to suck all the life out of any environment it inhabited. The Lamentation—also known as the God of Suicides, the Saint of Suffering, the Tyrant of Tears. It had many names but only one nature, and nobody worshipped it. You only turned to the Lamentation when you’d run out of belief, hope, and any kind of faith.

  We sto
od together before the flimsy-looking front door, hanging just a little open between stained stone walls. There were no windows. Above the door was a tarnished brass plaque, giving the name of the place in Gothic Victorian script—the Maxwell Mausoleum. The funeral parlour had been around for almost two centuries, before it was shut down amid general outrage. (This was long before the Necropolis became the only supplier for funeral ceremonies in the Nightside.)

  They still tell stories about what happened in the Maxwell Mausoleum all those years ago. Bad stories, even for the Nightside. Of what was done to the dead and the living, in dark and silenced rooms, where the Maxwell family worshipped the insides of bodies, and practised rites so revolting there aren’t even words to describe them. The Maxwells were finally discovered, then dragged out and hanged from the nearest street-lamps, their bodies set alight while they were still kicking. Their remains were buried in the same coffin, after certain precautions, and for weeks afterwards people lined up to piss on the grave.

  It was because of the terrible things that happened here that the Authorities decided to forget all about free enterprise, and determined that in the future all funeral practices would be supplied by the Necropolis, which they would watch over and control. The Maxwell Mausoleum had been abandoned for years before the Lamentation moved in but you could still feel the evil oozing out of the filthy old stones. The Lamentation presumably felt right at home.

  It suddenly seemed a lot quieter than it had a few moments ago, and it took me a while to work out why. Madman’s music had stopped. He stood right in front of the door, studying it closely while being careful not to touch it, and frowning, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. “Why don’t the dead lie still?” he said, then turned away, without waiting for an answer.